Snapshot
by Lucere
Summary: Some days Zephyr copes. Some days being with Leanne and Vashyron is almost like wanting to live. Zephyr never clings more to apathy than in these ordinary brutal moments. Oneshots, Zephyr-centric.
1. Television Screen

**Disclaimer:** Resonance of Fate does not belong to me. I make no profit from this story. I only hope it can convey an inkling of the love I have for Zephyr, his psyche, and his unique relationships with Leanne and Vashyron.

**Television Screen**

She is sleeping on the sofa when he steps down into the living room. He considers waking her, pushing her towards her bedroom, but decides he does not want to bother. Apathy settles over him like a cloak, and he sits on the narrow space of the sofa not occupied by her. The television washes pale light over her in the dark.

On screen, a cheesy soap opera is playing. The volume is low, the words indistinguishable. A woman slaps her husband and screams at him with her mouth like a chasm and her eyes like china saucers. What an idiot, he thinks, thumbing the arm of the sofa. Beside him, Leanne stirs, her blue eyes slowly blinking open. He stares at the screen.

"Zephyr?" Her voice comes out slurred from sleep. And something else, he realizes, eyes alighting on the glass bottle near the bottom of the sofa. Vashyron's stash, no doubt.

"Aa," he says, still staring at the screen in front of him. Sometimes he forgets she is old enough to drink.

At the side of his vision, he sees her sit up and wince, hands cradling her head. Her hair has loosened from its usual ponytail; locks of spun-straw hair fall over her shoulder and white shirt. The shirt and hair are almost luminescent in the dark, giving her tired face an uncanny softness. He looks away when he realizes he is staring.

Like a tingling at the edge of his arm, he feels her looking at him. He tries to quell the jittery feeling rising in his stomach, but it gets harder the longer she stares at him. He mentally lets out a breath when she speaks.

"Can't sleep tonight?" She turns her head to face the screen, though her body is still facing him.

He shrugs.

Scenes of domestic violence light across their faces until he finally tires of the white noise and turns the T.V. off. Darkness, black and solid, blankets them, a relief, but he can almost hear her shiver. The whites of her eyes glow in the dark.

It is not him who starts it, he thinks, feeling tentative fingers steal across his own. Even gloves are not enough to preserve her skin from calluses. She was a test subject, once, he thinks. She lets go of his hand once she has judged her proximity from him. The cushion to his left dips as he feels the lightest pressure-hair-brush against the side of his pants. He stiffens, but it does not take him long to adjust.

Their breaths even. He sprawls upright against the corner of the sofa, her head just resting to the side of his leg on the cushion. She is close enough to radiate heat, not close enough to touch. He is careful not to touch her, either, even in his sleep.

(7/15/12)


	2. Run

**Run**

At nightfall, Zephyr walks home with Leanne from a mission. Vashyron has stayed behind to collect the rewards. He has charged the two with the dubious honor of cooking dinner. While Zephyr grumbles, kicking loose stones along the road, Leanne strolls with her hands clasped behind her back. He is not irritated at the situation, not really, until he happens to glance right and see Leanne smiling.

She is laughing at him. At him. Zephyr. Blood suffuses his cheeks, and immediately he stops kicking stones. He slouches instead, tucking his hands in his pockets, and walks a little faster. For some reason this only seems to amuse Leanne more, because now he hears a strange muffled sound behind him. She is too polite to laugh outright, of course.

Scowling Zephyr whirls on her and barks, "What?" Startled she nearly runs into him, but he steps away before she can.

He has never noticed before, but Leanne is levelheaded in the face of unexpected situations. Though surprised a moment before, her eyes are inquisitive and alert, darting across his face. They seem to pose a question. Zephyr has trouble deciphering which one. She decides to answer him in the cryptic language of females.

The rough pads of her mercenary fingers ghost across his cheek. At his blank look, she grins cheekily and says, "Wasn't laughing at you, dummy," and raps him gently on the cheek with her knuckles. It should not affect him. The light brush of her skin against his is barely any touch at all.

Except that it isn't.

When was the last time a person willingly touched him? He thinks back, and the only time which surfaces is when Vashyron saved him. He had no choice, carrying a dead load. At the orphanage, he remembers the fleeting warmth of children's hands against his own, tugging, before he quickly shuts that thought out before it can lead to more.

She doesn't know any better, he thinks. She isn't thinking.

Some of his scorn must show on his face, because the next moment Leanne is frowning. He backs away when her hand rises to trap him again. _Don't touch me_, he almost whispers, before realizing how pathetic that sounds. Zephyr smiles sardonically. He turns his back and saunters merrily along the path, whistling.

"That's just like Vashyron," he hears behind him. The tone is so peculiar to Leanne he stops. Leanne's fists are at her sides. He cannot decide whether she is hurting or whether she wants to hurt him. Either way Zephyr does not want to find out, and he deals with the situation the best he knows how: he runs.

* * *

AN: Turned into a series of oneshots, haha. Zephyr is a fascinating character. I don't usually write from a male's perspective. Hope you enjoyed reading!

(8/25/12)


	3. At Heart

**At Heart**

Madness is watching others grow while you stay the same. It is only bearable, Zephyr thinks, because all three of them are caught in the same place.

Leanne lives because she can. Minutes, ordinary for most people, are precious to her because she should never have possessed them. A test subject, her every inhalation is defiance of the nature of the world. This, to her, is reason enough to live. In her situation Zephyr agrees but will never adopt such a belief.

Vashyron is harder to read. Zephyr thinks that as a soldier, Vashyron lives because of fighter's instincts, the need to move and fight and defend without thinking twice. His actions are hardly mechanical, however, and in rare moments Zephyr believes Vashyron contemplates more than the both of them, Leanne and Zephyr. Vashyron has even less to live for than Zephyr, women and booze discounting, and Zephyr wonders how that must feel, an ex-soldier with nothing to protect.

The city folk carry on easily enough. Each day that Zephyr, Leanne, and Vashyron go on their missions, they pass men, women, and children who walk the gray cobblestones of Ebel's streets. Smiles on their faces, animation in their gait, they work and advance without concern to the end of their time. One time Zephyr watches a man load coal onto a wheelbarrow. There is no agony or rebellion in the man's focused eyes or his straining muscles. Just an acceptance that what needs to be done, must be done, and there is no use crying about it.

Zephyr envies these quiet, unassuming people. They are stronger than he will ever be.

* * *

(9/16/12)


	4. Repetition

**Repetition**

_Bang._

There is more to kill. There is always more to kill.

You would think you would be desensitized to the feeling already. Trigger under your finger. Tension as you pull. _Bang._ Another down. Another one erased from the world.

Sometimes they are monsters, mutated dogs with fangs sharp as spikes and saliva dripping like madmen's tears. These are the easiest to kill. The bullet pierces their emaciated flesh, they double over with a wet whine, and then they still. On the outskirts of Ebel's golden lamp-lit streets, the air rots their starved corpses.

Then there are the humans.

You wonder where they come from, these men sporting tight leather outfits and wide-brimmed hats and grins fierce as sharks. They rarely speak, only point and shoot, and you wonder _where do they come from?_ They come in droves, in hundreds, like the spawn of Ebel's pollution. Or perhaps the smog has washed away their identities like the gray of smoke painting skin.

You would think you would be desensitized to the feeling already. They are just lives nobody wanted, lives thrown out to fend for themselves until starvation or disease encroached. Half-monsters, half-humans, they hardly count as sentient.

The numbness in your chest strangely feels like silence weeping.

Who are you to judge? You are not god.

_Bang._

There is more to kill. There is always more to kill.

You would think you would be desensitized to the feeling already.

* * *

AN: Brought on by excessive stress from work, lol.

(9/22/12)


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